


tempus ad tempus

by butwewillstay



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Episode: s03e04 Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose, Episode: s06e10 Tithonus, F/M, Immortality, Retrospective
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:48:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25480414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butwewillstay/pseuds/butwewillstay
Summary: Time passes quickly, sometimes so quickly that it feels like centuries pass in the blink of an eye, and disappear. She does not know how old she is.
Relationships: Fox Mulder & Dana Scully, Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 1
Kudos: 9





	tempus ad tempus

**Author's Note:**

> This is by no means an original concept, just my exploration of a popular headcanon.

_ “alright. so, how do i die?”  _

_ “you don’t” _

There had been a time when Scully was certain death was coming for her. When she had cancer, her life was an overturned hourglass, her time left was the grains of sand slipping through to the other side until there were hardly any left. It terrified her, but at least there was a definable end, something to push her to make every moment count.

Now, all she can do is count every moment, to record them and tuck them somewhere safe to look back over in the future, like a faded photo album stuffed full of joys, sorrows, and all the mundane moments in between. 

Despite her best effort to preserve them, to cram the fragments together into some sort of disjointed puzzle, memories crumble to dust and slip through her fingers. She cries the first time she cannot remember her sister’s face without the aid of a photograph. 

Most of her past has slipped away. She keeps photos and records of things she cannot bear to forget (digitally, transferred from device to device as new technology was produced  — hard copies had worn away to nothing long ago ), like Mulder, her children, and their lives together.

All she can do is scramble to keep it from slipping away completely, to prevent it from disappearing.

_ “you’re saying that, that time disappeared. time can’t just disappear!” _

She knows now that she was wrong. Not literally, perhaps, but time passes quickly, sometimes so quickly that it feels like centuries pass in the blink of an eye, and disappear. She does not know how old she is. 

Everyone she knew in what she comes to think of as her “original life” is gone, has been gone so long that their bones have turned to dust and completely returned to the Earth. At least, until the Earth was engulfed by a swollen, reddish sun. 

The Others came, long before the end, and society experienced a mass overhaul (as societies are apt to do) before it gradually settled into normalcy. She spent most of those decades wishing Mulder was still alive, so he could see that he was right, after all. Those first few years, every time she saw one of Them, she turned reflexively to discuss it with Mulder, before remembering that he wasn’t there anymore. 

They escorted humanity off the planet long before the fire and fury washed the Earth away, and showed them the stars. Scully has seen so much, more than she ever thought was possible. She has watched the birth and death of stars, has met people from millions of civilizations. She has peeled back the curtain of the universe and explored the corners of the galaxies to examine all the secrets of the cosmos. 

_ “you live forever, sooner or later, you start to think about the big things you’re missing and that everybody else gets to find out about but you” _

Sometimes, she wonders how it would have been if she had not met Arthur Fellig all those lifetimes ago, had not turned away from Death (she can still vividly remember Fellig and his camera, even though most of her other memories have disintegrated). Would she have died before or after Mulder? Would they be reunited in whatever comes after, the one locked door that she cannot unlock?

She was with Mulder when he died, had watched the life bleed out of him until he was gone. She would try to romanticize it, but she has been alive far too long for such trivial things. 

There is a picture of their unremarkable house, one that she thinks Mulder took. She cannot remember if it is before or after the charges against Mulder were dropped. She cannot even remember what he had been charged with.

She used to hear his voice, the first few decades after he died. They had spent so long together (not really that long, she knows now  — nothing ever lasts for long) and when she lost him she lost a piece of herself as well. Scully doesn’t know if it has ever truly healed, or just scarred over in an ugly, gruesome mess. 

Now, she cannot remember what his voice sounded like. 

She wonders if he would accept the universe as it is now, or if it is so beyond him and his time that even he would refuse the truth. 

Has God cursed her with this eternal voyage? It seems implausible, to her now, that in a universe as vast as the one she inhabits there even is a God. Her golden cross that hangs around her neck in all of her old photos has long since turned to dust, and her faith with it.

But still, she finds herself pondering whether Death will ever come for her again, and extend his hand towards her to lead her away from all she has gained, across the veil to reunite with all that she has lost. 

She wonders if she would take it. 

  
  
  
  



End file.
